PROJECT SUMMARY Core A, the Administrative Core, based at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Institute for Genome Sciences in Baltimore (UMSOM/IGS) will provide administrative, financial, research oversight, and general administrative support related to the program consortium and each individual project and core. The Core will be co-directed by Drs. Jacques Ravel, Patrik Bavoil and Jason Gleghorn, who bring complementary expertise to this Program, in women’s health, sexually transmitted infections, microbiome, and biomimetics. The co-directors will coordinate and manage all activities of the Program, assist Core and Research Project Leaders with scientific direction and administrative support. They will be responsible for promoting collaboration and coordination with other Biomimetics CRCs, and foster outreach activities to promote collaborations with pertinent scientific communities. The co-Directors will be responsible for communicating with NIH Program Officers, the Biomimetics CRC Executive Committee, the Program External Scientific Consultants committee, and for organizing biweekly conference calls with the entire Program staff. They will meet weekly to review scientific and administrative progress, make adjustments, set the agenda for the bi-weekly meetings and discuss the topics of monthly topical subgroup meetings that they will each organize to promote cross-disciplinary training and knowledge. The Administrative Core A includes a Program Manager (PM) who will work with the Program Directors and external scientific collaborators to coordinate the scientific and administrative aspects of the Program, including progress reports. The PM will oversee the day-to-day coordination of the Program as well as facilitate the materials and data flow from projects to cores and back. She will facilitate data sharing and dissemination in coordination with the Omics/Clinical Core C. The Office of Research Development (ORD), UMB, will handle Intellectual Property Management. ORD will act as the primary interface between UMB and technology offices at the Program’s investigator institutions. The co-directors of the Administrative Core will be responsible for the overall scientific leadership of the Program. The Administrative Core A will aim to facilitate the running of the projects and cores so that quality information is generated, integrated and available to the scientific community. This will be achieved by providing administrative support to the Program (Aim 1); directing and coordinating the scientific research of the overall Program (Aim 2); and assuring that data generated under this Program are available to the scientific community (Aim 3).